Artista and the Count
by Magnets in Winter
Summary: Glimpses of past lives have been haunting Leo for a while now. When a person from his visions materializes before him his entire life is turned upside down. (LeonardoxRiario)
1. Chapter 1

It's Friday and Leonardo is at the club again. The week of barely sleeping and strange dreams has left him exhausted but he knows that if he goes to bed now he'll be haunted by the strangers again. So he dances alone. He takes comfort in the sweating bodies that surround him. A push from a stranger every now and then only spurs him on. He can feel this week's frustrations pouring out of him with every jump and with every bead of sweat that spills from his pores.

He is startled by the hands resting on his hips, keeping him in place and before he can turn around a warm breath is by his ear: "Please, don't turn around."

There is something familiar about that voice but Leo just can't place it.

"Just for a moment," the voice continues. Leo can feel the man behind him lower his head. His breath now dancing over Leo's shoulders, the man's lips graze the exposed skin there. Leo is scared but deep inside he also feels that, somehow, this is ok. The man's hands start moving, thumbs rubbing gentle circles, gentle pressure guides them to start swaying to some unheard music.

Leo can't help himself – he moves closer to the man and can feel the man's chest against his back. The man is not taller than Leo, perhaps he's even a bit shorter, but they're built the same – wiry but strong. The man's breathing calms Leo further and he surrenders to the guided movements.

The man's nose begins to trace a path from Leo's shoulder, up his neck and settles by Leo's ear. A gentle kiss followed by a strong suck just below the jawline electrifies Leo's entire body, "Just as I remember, mmmmm." The man comments and Leo can't stop the tiny moan that escapes his lips.

Leo begins to turn around and the man disappears. Leo spins around searching the bodies for someone who might be the stranger but finds no one. He rubs his face and quietly swears. He goes to the bar and orders one shot after another.


	2. Chapter 2

Leonardo is in standing in the middle of a wide stone staircase. A crimson carpet running down and he is playing with something, a pendant of some kind hanging from a thread around his neck. The sides of the pendant are sharp, teeth-like and he feels this strange thing is of great importance, or at least it will be.

A soft voice behind him asks "What do you see?"

Leonardo turns around and the vision changes. All he can see now is a starched curiously tailored black jacket. He focuses on the design of the collar and the gray silk around the neck of the man. He remembers that he's just been offered something so he retorts, "You're offering me forbidden fruit now."

The man hesitates barely a heartbeat, and then the answer is accompanied by an almost imperceptible laugh, "That's what serpents do, isn't it?"

The scene changes again and he is in the daylight, in the middle of what looks like a quarry. The sunlight hurts his eyes and he turns around. He now looks at the back of the same man as before, only now he's on horseback and the long black coat is spilling over the glossy black hair of the proud animal. The man starts to turn around and asks Leonardo again, "What do you see?"

Leonardo wakes up fully clothed lying on his bed. The hangover from the long night exacerbated by the ray of sunlight that had crept through the curtains. He groans as he forces himself to the bathroom. He sheds his clothes along the way and the sight that greets him in the mirror forces another groan out of him. His hair is a mess, the black rings around his eyes even more prominent, the 3-day beard completely taking over his face, and to top it all off – the mother of all hickeys on the side of his neck.

He runs his fingers over the sensitive skin there and murmurs, "So, that part at least wasn't a dream."


	3. Chapter 3

AN- I apologize for the long long long wait. Real life just got the better of me. I have the rest of the story written out in my notebook and should be posting the rest of the chapters by the end of this week (or next week at the latest).

Once again, sorry :)

Walking along the streets that day Leonardo is haunted by the voice from the club and from his dreams. He is lost in the depths of his mind, but for once the thoughts are not equations and designs of impossible machines. This time it is a man, a strange man who seemed to know him last night. The man whose touch last night was so new and at the same so familiar.

Leo walks aimlessly around the town, getting lost in the crowd, listening to other people's conversations. Each conversation somehow brings new flashes of the stranger. He stops at the kiosk and grabs an espresso and a pack of cigarettes in the hopes that the nicotine and caffeine would clear his head, make him focus on the now. He sits on a bench by the river. Unconsciously his hands move to his bag and produce the sketchbook and a pencil he always keeps there.

He looks at the pencil, rolls it between his fingers and starts drawing the view of the river. The ash from his cigarette falls on the paper and he swipes it away. The pale grey smudge somehow fits perfectly into the cloudy skies on the paper. He focuses on the smudge on the paper and then on the corresponding one on his hand. He can see a flash of explosions before his eyes. He can see the same hand moving along a barrel of a strange gun and he shakes his head violently trying to chase away the images.

He rips out the drawing of the river scene and starts on a new one, this time it's a face, an imaginary face. Eyebrows are the first to emerge – strong and frowning. Then there are the eyes – dark, menacing, deep with sorrow and pain. The cheek bones frame the eyes sharply and then continue towards the thick, meticulously maintained beard. Leo draws the man's nose. It is a strong, proud, masculine nose, if a nose could be that.

The last feature Leo draws are the lips and they are surprisingly soft and full. He would have expected them to be just a slim straight line across, a perpendicular companion of the nose, but they are not. His hand moves towards the cigarette and as he removes it from his mouth he stops and runs a finger over his own lip. He can swear he knows what a pair of lips like those would feel against his. He can almost feel them right now. His fingers return to the paper to move over the drawn pair of lips and the paper beneath his fingers is transformed into the supple velvet of the lips from his memory.

He looks at the face once it is finished and still he doesn't recognize the man. He tries to close the sketchbook but as his hand approaches the paper the pencil moves across the paper almost of its own volition. It is a long uninterrupted line from the neck, over the shoulder and down the strong back ending in the hip line and the strong thigh. It is a man's back. He decides not to fight the images; he draws like a man possessed. The resulting drawing is breathtaking. The man is lithe with each muscle perfectly defined. The posture is that of a dancer, back straight, proud, standing firmly on both feet but ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

He can hear the voice of the man in his head: "Artista, I am losing my patience with you. I am the sword of the Holy Church, not one of your models."


	4. Chapter 4

I know I keep blaming "life" for my lack of updating, but it is what it is.

I have finally typed out this story. There are 6 chapters all together (unless I grow a set of balls and actually write what happens when they do get home). I will be posting all three remaining chapter at the same time.

Hope you enjoy and as always I would love to hear from you. Your comments will make this story (and my future stories) even better.

LP

The rest of the week continues in the same fashion. His nights are filled with dreams of strange places and strange times. One evening he is fighting the motion sickness on board a sail boat heading into the unknown. The next night he is in a strange labyrinth fighting his own fears but continuing on after hearing the encouraging voice of the stranger.

The weekend comes again and he is exhausted. In the afternoon light he starts sketching again but he is too comfortable on the sofa in his living room and he falls asleep. The dream is different this time. He is in Paris and the streets are filled with people. They are an unruly mob, propelled forward by some unknown force. He can recognize certain names being chanted, some in rage and some in celebration. He tries to fight the current of people, he tries to stand his ground and scan the crowds. He is looking for him and after several strong shoves from the crowd he spots him. The man he is looking for is on the other end of the square, much closer to the guillotine than he had hoped. He pushes through the crowd and when he reaches the man he begins to say his name but he is interrupted by the chants of the crowd growing louder as a man is dragged to the guillotine. Leonardo and the man don't move any more. They stand there, the man looking at the scene unfolding before him in amazement. Leonardo tries not to look at what must follow the reading of the transgressions of the once most powerful man in France. He focuses instead on the face of the man next to him. He hears the blade drop and the sickening crunch of the meat and bones being sliced through. He grabs the man's shoulder and yells above the chants, "We really need to go, please. This can't end well, it can't. Please, Riario, come with me!"

The man is about to reply when Leo wakes up in a sweat, bile rising in his throat. He tries to wash away the memories in a long shower.

"Riario? What kind of a name is Riario?"

He decides that enough is enough. He will go back to the club tonight and try to find the man again and talk to him this time. He needs answers!


	5. Chapter 5

The club is not as packed as it usually is which suits Leo perfectly. He grabs his third drink of the night and takes a sip, his eyes scanning the dancing bodies looking for the man he had been dreaming of and drawing this past week. But the man is not there. After he finishes the drink he decides he's had enough of just standing there, looking for what must be a figment of his imagination and he joins the dancing bodies.

He is swaying to the music, his hands in the air, his eyes closed. And then he feels it, this strange electricity. It is like the entire world is on swaying and is about to be turned on its end. He stops dancing, opens his eyes and sees him. The man is standing in front of him, looking at him, his mouth open as if he is trying to say something but he can't. Leo steps closer to the man, looks him in the eyes and asks, "Who are you?"

"Girolamo Riario." The man answers with a small smile.

"No, not your name. I got that from the dreams. I mean, **who **are you? Who are you to me?"

"I am… I am your rival and your partner. It's…", the man searches for a right word.

"Complicated?" Leo finishes for him, "no shit! I keep dreaming of you. Strange dreams, the kind of dreams that get a person committed into an asylum!"

"Those are not dreams, Artiste. Those are lives."

This confuses Leo even more. He starts backing away from Riario. "You're even more insane than I am!"

"In your dreams, when and where were we?" Riario asks slowly following Leo in his retreat.

"What do you mean?" Leo asks, panic now evident in his trembling voice.

"Was it New Orleans in 1860? Turn of the century Paris? New York in the 60s?"

As Riario continues giving Leo places and times he can see the flashes of those cities, of those times. And each time the two of them are there, Leo reaching for Riario, and Riario turning away from him. Leo is really scared now and his retreat from Riario becomes almost frantic, until he is up against a wall. Riario steps closer and his hand slowly comes to rest in the middle of Leo's chest.

"Calm down, Artiste. Breathe." His voice is soft, as if he is talking to a wild animal. He looks Leo straight in the eyes and they both take deep breaths. Almost instantly Leo can feel his entire body relax. "You are not crazy and I am not a psycho. I know it is strange hearing all this. I know from experience. You must feel like the entire world is wrong, like everything around you is falling apart. Trust me, I know. But if you take time and hear me out, you'll see that the world is in fact falling into place. Please, just hear me out."

Leo decides that the best course of action when facing an impossible situation is to stall and hope that a better solution presents itself later. He nods his head in ascent and Riario leads him out of the club.

"Ok, I think I should start from the beginning."


	6. Chapter 6

Leo listens to Riario talk about their lives in the 16th century. Riario says that he is in fact Leonardo da Vinci. This makes Leo burst into laughter, but he stops very fast when he sees that the stranger is serious. The man continues telling him about their rivalry. About how they fought each other, how they sailed to the ends of the earth in search of strange knowledge and secrets. The man tells him about how they survived the ordeals in the New World only to be faced with even more ferocious demons when they returned to Italy. He tells him about his experience as a true demon, about the hurt he'd caused to the people around him. He tells him about his death, he tells him about the pain he'd felt as his last breath was leaving his body and about the strange thing that happened afterwards.

"I thought my black soul would be transported into the deepest reaches of Hell, but that didn't happen. I awoke in a new place, a new time, a new life. I remembered nothing of my past life at first, but then I began remembering things. Images came to me in my dreams, and after a while I started seeing you everywhere I went. You were there when I went to work at the apothecary's, you were there when I went to church, everywhere. One day when I was at the theatre you came up next to me and greeted me by my full name and title. I ran away from you thinking you were a demon sent to torment me.

"After that we met in New Orleans. It was a strange thing again. I was staggering along the street after one too many drinks. I was on my way home when I saw you leaning against a lamp post. You were just looking at me. You asked me not to run away again. I just stood there as you told me this strange story about us spanning over centuries. I didn't believe you, I thought you were trying to mess with me. The alcohol didn't help, you see. I attacked you and that time it was you who ran away.

"We met several times more, and each time it was you who came looking for me. It was you who remembered everything and I was the one confused, the one whose whole world suddenly stopped making sense. Each time, however, we talked for longer. Each time you told me more of our story and each time I was closer to believing you.

The last one was some thirty years ago. You came to me in Tokyo in 1990s. You did something different then. You didn't tell me about the past lives, you just made friends with me. We would have lunch together most days. We talked, we got to know each other the way we were, not the way our past selves were. I grew to care for you, but then one day you didn't show up. I looked for you everywhere, I couldn't find you. It was as if you never even existed. This broke something in me and the memories came pouring forth. I remembered everything. Every life we lived, everything I did, every single time I hurt you, every single time I loved you.

"And here we are now. The tables have turned, now it's me who has spent almost two years looking for you and it's you who needs to remember. Karma, what a bitch."

Leo just looks at him thinking this man is a special kind of crazy. But then there is that little voice inside of him telling him that maybe, just maybe this might be true. He reaches his hand forward, his fingertips tracing Riario's lips and when he feels the soft, warm velvet he knows it is the truth. Riario closes his eyes and leans forward as if he is afraid Leo would stop touching him.

Leo doesn't stop. He moves forward and his lips replace his fingers. "I remember this. I remember the feel and the taste of these lips. "

"You remember?"

"Yes." Leo whispers and Riario's body is flushed against his suddenly. The kiss that follows is not the chaste one that Leo had given him. It is rushed, passionate, there are teeth and tongues and moans. Riario's hands find their way under Leo's shirt and Leo can feel the blunt nails as Riario tries to bring them even closer to each other.

"Let's go home."

"Yes, Artiste, let's go home."


	7. Chapter 7

I hope you have enjoyed this story. Thank you all for reading, and a special thanks to those who have reviewed this story.  
I know it took me a while to finish it, but I did finish it in the end.  
Perhaps one day I might write a one-shot of their adventures when they got home, but not tonight.  
Until next time  
kisses from LP


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